It usually begins somewhere quiet. Not in a staff meeting, not in a seminar hall, not at an “urgent” committee meeting about revising the curriculum that will never actually get revised. Frustration reveals itself in private spaces — where academics accidentally tell the truth.

Scene 1: Airport Lounge, Delhi → Boston flight

A physics professor from IIT, carrying forty years of citations in his backpack, leans over to his Stanford collaborator and whispers, “Students are intelligent… but distracted. I teach quantum mechanics. They learn exam hacks from Instagram.”

Both laugh, but not fully. It’s the laugh of two tired warriors who know the battlefield has changed while their armour remains the same.

Scene 2: Faculty Retreat in Udaipur, after dinner

Three brilliant female professors — one from LSE, one from a mid-tier Indian private university, and one from MIT — sit by the lake. They sip tea, shawls wrapped tight, and one says,

“You know, we work so hard. But the system imagines we only teach three hours a day.”

The others chuckle. They know their real day ends at 11 p.m. — after grading, mentoring, research, admin, emails, and the emotional labour of carrying a generation that doesn’t have enough sleep, confidence, or clarity.

Scene 3: Old IIT professor having chai with his IAS batchmate

The bureaucrat looks nervous.

“Yaar, we pushed these reforms too fast. We thought technology will fix everything. But… teacher training? Pedagogy? Who had time for that?”

The professor smiles — not bitter, not angry.

Just tired.

“Policy moves fast. Learning doesn’t.”

They both know the truth:

Colleges became better buildings, not better classrooms.

Scene 4: WhatsApp group of global researchers

A Berkeley post-doc, a Tokyo robotics expert, a Central University lecturer, and an Oxford economist exchange voice notes.

The Oxford professor says,

“Every year we add to the literature. But the students don’t read the literature.”

The Central University professor replies,

“My students read — but only summaries written by someone who didn’t read the book.”

Everyone laughs.

It’s the good kind of laughter. The coping-mechanism kind.

Scene 5: Mid-career Indian professor in her office

She looks at her timetable — six classes, a committee meeting, one NAAC file, one research grant report, two parent queries, and a student crying outside her door because placements went wrong.

She says softly,

“This wasn’t supposed to be the job.

This was supposed to be a calling.”

But then she wipes her eyes, fixes her sari pleats, opens the door, and becomes a professor again.

That transformation — exhausted to hopeful — is the real emotional labour of academia.

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So what exactly is The Frustration?

Not anger.

Not guilt.

Not self-pity.

It’s a quiet ache carried with dignity.

It’s the frustration of:

• teaching in a world that shifted faster than syllabi

• competing with coaching centres, YouTube, and AI

• doing paperwork instead of pedagogy

• mentoring students whose attention is shattered by devices

• facing employers who ask, “Why aren’t graduates job-ready?”

• being blamed by policymakers who never taught a class

• watching talent drain to corporates

• being expected to heal society while society barely listens

Yet — and this is the miracle — they still return to class every morning with slides updated, jokes ready, and hope intact.

**Because frustration is not the opposite of pride.

It’s the cost of caring.**

A professor once told her Harvard colleague:

“We complain because we still believe something can be fixed.”

Her colleague replied,

“If we stop complaining… the system is dead.”

That’s the truth.

Their frustration is actually proof that the heart of academia still beats.

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**And that is why, despite everything, they continue —

Reluctant Teachers, yes,

but also the last defenders of learning in a world drowning in short cuts.**